You Know You're Old Quotes & Sayings

In the middle of a grocery store, two children were horsing around (one holding the other in a headlock) when the mother turned abruptly to give them a stern reprimand.
'You two are old enough to know better than to behave this way in public! Could you - at least for the time we're in this store - mind your manners enough to act like an adult?'
The children took less than a moment to consider their mother's question before facing each other and engaging in the following conversation:
'I hate you.'
'I hate you too.'
'Let's get a divorce.'
'Okay.'
Perhaps 'act like an adult' isn't such good advice anymore. — Richelle E. Goodrich

And I will love words for their own sake, like 'hyacinth' and 'Piccadilly' and 'onyx.' And I'll have a good old dog, and think what I like, and be part of a different sort of family, with friends, you know? - who understand that things are only worth what you're willing to give up for them. — Rick Elice

But for me, if we're talking about romance, cassettes wipe the floor with MP3s. This has nothing to do with superstition, or nostalgia. MP3s buzz straight to your brain. That's part of what I love about them. But the rhythm of the mix tape is the rhythm of romance, the analog hum of a physical connection between two sloppy human bodies. The cassette is full of tape hiss and room tone; it's full of wasted space, unnecessary noise. Compared to the go-go-go rhythm of an MP3, mix tapes are hopelessly inefficient. You go back to a cassette the way a detective sits and pours drinks for the elderly motel clerk who tells stories about the old days
you know you might be somewhat bored, but there might be a clue in there somewhere. And if there isn't, what the hell? It's not a bad time. You know you will waste time. You plan on it. — Rob Sheffield

Don't lie to anyone, but particularly don't lie to millennials. They just know. They can smell it. Be yourself: if you're old, be old. If you don't know anything about pop culture, don't pretend to know anything about pop culture. When you credit teenagers with intelligence and emotional sophistication, they respond intelligently and with emotional sophistication. — John Green

Weston: Look at my outlook. You don't envy it, right?
Wesley: No.
Weston: That's because it's full of poison. Infected. And you recognize poison, right? You recognize it when you see it?
Wesley: Yes.
Weston: Yes, you do. I can see that you do. My poison scares you.
Wesley: Doesn't scare me.
Weston: No?
Wesley: No.
Weston: Good. You're growing up. I never saw my old man's poison until I was much older than you. Much older. And then you know how I recognized it?
Wesley: How?
Weston: Because I saw myself infected with it. That's how. I saw me carrying it around. His poison in my body. — Sam Shepard

I sometimes think we should go back to the old days, when there was proper courtship, when people walked out together for weeks and weeks before anything happened. At least then you know something about each other, you have some solid ground to put your feet on. We're all so impatient now, we just want to get to the main action. — Tania Kindersley

You're not old enough to have a real boyfriend," he muttered.
I stiffened.
"If I'm old enough to have babies, then I'm damn well old enough to have a boyfriend," I ground out. "And just as soon as I decide on who it's going to be, I'll let you know. — Katherine Allred

I' was the last word I was able to speak aloud. I wanted to pull the thread, unravel the scarf of my silence and start again from the beginning, but instead I said, 'I.' I know I'm not alone in this disease, you hear the old people in the street and some of them are moaning, "Ay yay yay," but some of them are clinging to their last word, 'I,' they're saying, because they're desperate, it's not a complaint it's a prayer, and then I lost 'I' and my silence was complete. — Jonathan Safran Foer

Your boyfriend had a dream about potatoes and you're asking me to interpret it? I'm just old. Being old doesn't mean you know more; it means you ate enough fiber. — Jonathan Carroll

I mean come on. Do you know how easy it is to be famous these days? Do you have any idea? The web has made it plausible to have your very own platform to stand and spew nonsense from on an hourly basis. There's an old saying: when everyone is special, no one will be. These days, everybody thinks they're special, so no one really does anything to be special anymore. — Corey Taylor

On the first day of school, you got to be real careful where you sit. You walk into the classroom and just plunk your stuff down on any old desk, and the next thing you know the teacher is saying, 'I hope you all like where you're sitting, because these are your permanent seats.' — Jeff Kinney

Hello, old friend. And here we are. You and me, on the last page. By the time you read these words, Rory and I will be long gone. So know that we lived well and were very happy. And above all else, know that we will love you always. Sometimes I do worry about you though. I think once we're gone you won't be coming back here for awhile. And you might be alone. Which you should never be. Don't be alone, Doctor. And do one more thing for me. There's a little girl waiting in a garden. She's going to wait a long while, so she's going to need a lot of hope. Go to her. Tell her a story. Tell her that if she's patient, the days are coming that she'll never forget. Tell her she'll go to see and fight pirates. She'll fall in love with a man who'll wait two thousand years to keep her safe. Tell her she'll give hope to the greatest painter who ever lived. And save a whale in outer space. Tell her, this is the story of Amelia Pond. And this is how it ends. — Steven Moffat

When I leave here, will this shop vanish the way they do in the stories?" "I'm afraid so, yes." "Why do they always do that?" The old man sighed. "You know, you're the first one who ever asked me that." But — Harlan Ellison

When you're young your mother shields you from the world because she thinks you're too young to understand, and when she's old you shield her because she's too old to understand - or to have any more understanding inflicted upon her. The curve of life goes: want to know, know, don't want to know. — Allison Pearson

Shane was sitting on the curb next to the old, cracked gas pumps, eating a candy bar. Claire plopped down next to him. "Half?" she asked.
"And now I know you're my girlfriend, since you're not afraid to demand community property," he said, and pulled off the uneaten half to hand it over. — Rachel Caine

Those type of people [in New Orleans] keep me happy and just smiling, you know? I just go hang out and talk with them and they tell me all types of old stories, and sometimes I might even pull my horn out in the middle of the block, and they're playing on beer bottles and different things, and we just do a little second line type thing, just us, four or five people, who are just having fun. That makes me day to be able to do that and go hang out with the people in the (Treme) neighborhood, and to do some shows around town, you know? — Troy Andrews

You ever see that thing on old tombstones, that Momento mori? That's Latin. You know what it means?" The roommate gave a negative grunt. "It means something like, 'Remember you gotta die.' And that's what this whole thing is like, like one great big reminder that we're all gonna go sooner or later, so we better be damn good to each other while we're here. — Chet Williamson

Most twenty-four-year-old women I know sleep in something more revealing. Something more adult." I raised my eyebrows. "There is nothing wrong with my Hello Kitty T-shirt." It was thin and comfortable, and it reached to my mid-thigh, which meant that if I had to get up in the middle of the night to dispatch any intruders, I'd do it with my butt covered and modesty intact. Sean frowned. "Sure, if you're five. Got a touch of arrested development happening there?" Argh. — Ilona Andrews

Believing is never a waste of time." Simon looked at me intently his eyes flickering. "Even if you're wrong you could have been right. Take me with my painting I don't know if I'm any good. So maybe I shouldn't try because maybe I'd be setting myself up for disappointment. But it's like you looking for old coins on the beach. Whether you find any or not is for bonus points it's the search that counts. It's the belief that they might be out there. — Amanda Howells

You know, you still owe me pancakes. I think I could go for ... apple cinnamon ones now. "
"Apple cinnamon? You sure are demanding."
"It's all right. I think you're man enough for it."
"Thetis, if I actually believed you had either apples or cinnamon in your kitchen, I'd make them for you right now."
I didn't answer. I was pretty sure I had some year-old Apple Jacks, but that was about it. — Richelle Mead

See pills of every shape and size, Such fascinating colors, too - Some green, some pink, some brown, some blue. 'All right,' she says, 'let's try the brown.' She takes one pill and gulps it down. 'Yum-yum!' she cries. 'Hooray! What fun! They're chocolate-coated, every one!' She gobbles five, she gobbles ten, She stops her gobbling only when The last pill's gone. There are no more. Slowly she rises from the floor. She stops. She hiccups. Dear, oh dear, She starts to feel a trifle queer. You see, how could young Goldie know, For nobody had told her so, That Grandmama, her old relation Suffered from frightful constipation. This — Roald Dahl

You can hardly call Deor old.' Arisa wrapped her arms around herself; the breeze was brisk despite the sunlight. 'He didn't live long enough to get old. Why would he do that? I know kings are supposed to care for the realm above all else, and so on, and so on, but that's rot. They're men, just like anyone else. Do you think he really, deliberately, laid down his life?'
'Yes,' said Weasel. 'At least, I think it's possible.'
It was the last answer she'd expected from Weasel-the-cynic.
'But why?' Arisa asked.
'Not having been there, I can't say for sure.' Weasel stuck his hands in his pockets. 'But I'd guess it was for the future.'
Arisa frowned. 'I don't understand.'
'The One God willing,' said Weasel softly, 'you never will. — Hilari Bell

If you're new, then perhaps you've seen it. Have you seen it, by chance?"
I frowned. "It?"
"Yes. It."
"It ... what?" I asked cautiously, facing the old faery again. "What are you looking for?"
"I don't know." She sighed heavily, seeming to shrink in on herself. "I don't remember. I just know I lost it. You haven't seen it, have you?"
"No," I told her firmly. "I haven't seen it."
"Oh." The old creature sighed again, shrinking down a little more. "Are you sure? I thought you might have seen it."
"So, anyway," Puck broke in, before the conversation could go in another circle. — Julie Kagawa

I know, you've been here a year, you think these people are normal. Well, they're not. WE'RE not. I look in the library, I call up books on my desk. Old ones, because they won't let us have anything new, but I've got a pretty good idea what children are, and we're not children. Children can lose sometimes, and nobody cares. Children aren't in armies, they aren't COMMANDERS, they don't rule over forty other kids, it's more than anybody can take and not get crazy. — Orson Scott Card

It's heartbreaking when you hear a kid buying a ticket for ... I don't know, whatever movie you're up against. And you see them sneaking into your film. It's just heartbreaking. But in the spirit of full disclosure, that is what I did as an 11-year-old sneaking into 'Stripes.' — Todd Phillips

Sure, occasionally a certain sappy song or romantic movie would come on, and you'd wonder what he or she was up to, but there was no way to know. Of course, you could always pick up the phone (and more recently, text or e-mail), but that would require that person's knowing you were thinking of him or her. Where's the fun in that? You never want them to know you're thinking of them, so you refrain. Before long the memories start to fade. One day, you realize you can't quite remember how she smelled or the exact color of his eyes. Eventually, without ever knowing it, you just forget that person altogether. You replace old memories with new ones, and life goes on. It was the clean break you needed to move forward. — Brandi Glanville

Lie is more worth living, more full of interest when you are likely to lose it. It shouldn't be, perhaps, but it is. When you're young and strong and healthy, and life stretches ahead of you, living isn't really important at all. It's young people who commit suicide easily, out of despair from love, sometimes from sheer anxiety and worry. But old people know how valuable life is and how interesting. - Jane Marple — Agatha Christie

I know the game, it's old and lame:
You're holdin' a flame for my name and my fame.
Livin' like Givens schemin' on Tyson,
But she got lucky 'cause he was a nice one.
But I ain't nice and I don't play that,
If it ain't tax, I don't pay that. — Kool Moe Dee

I have a 10 year old boy and a 6 year old boy and the stuff that they watch, it's always ... I mean, it could be because we're a funny family, but they love the humor and combining humor with space action, I mean, you know, there's a winner right there. — Rhys Darby

That's what's so stupid about the whole magic thing, you know. You spend twenty years learning the spell that makes nude virgins appear in your bedroom, and then you're so poisoned by quicksilver fumes and half-blind from reading old grimoires that you can't remember what happens next. — Terry Pratchett

If we're laying out a garden, planning one before the house, you know, and there you've a tree that's stood for centuries in the very spot ... Old and gnarled it may be, and yet you don't cut down the old fellow to make room for the flowerbeds, but lay out your beds so as to take advantage of the tree. You won't grow him again in a year ... — Leo Tolstoy

There is a discrepancy of somebody going to an art dealer and promising what they'll make for the next three years. And I'm old fashioned that way; I think that every exhibition you make is supposed to put you in the world, that the next exhibition is spinning off of that. It's almost like a riff. And if you know what you're going to do for the next three years, why don't just do it the final point? You would think, in a progressive situation, that the final would be the best. — Lawrence Weiner

If your rely only on experience, you'll simply keep applying old solutions to new problems. I know a lot of people who feel they have an identity only when they're talking about their problems. That way, they exist because their problems are linked to what they judge to be their history. — Paulo Coelho

DESPERATELY SEEKING EPIC You're my father. I don't know much about you. I know your name is Paul James, you're a thrill seeker, and once upon a time you did stunts and people called you 'Epic.' I've been told you don't know about me. That it's complicated. But for me it's simple. Here's the thing: I'm twelve years old . . . and I'm dying. And as much as this could crush my mother, I have to meet you before I go. In time, I'm sure she'll understand. She's still in love with you. So, Epic, if you read this, please come back. You don't have to be my dad. You don't even have to tell me you love me or you're sorry. Just come see me. — B.N. Toler

Before you can read, you know the difference between a story and reality. And, of course, by the time you're old enough to do any real damage with an Uzi, you've learned that difference. — Penn Jillette

People don't want children to know what they need to know. They want their kids to know what they ought to need to know. If you're a teacher you're in a constant battle with mildly deluded adults who think the world will get better if you imagine it is better. You want to teach about sex? Fine, but only when they're old enough to do it. You want to talk politics? Sure, but nothing modern. Religion? So long as you don't actually think about it. Otherwise some furious mob will come to your house and burn you for a witch. — Nick Harkaway

I want to know now," I whine, not caring that I sound like a five-year-old throwing a tantrum.

"How about this? We'll Rock, Paper, Scissors for it."

Yeah, we're going to make great parents, all right.

"Fine." I crack my knuckles, which makes him snicker. "Ready?"

"Ready."

We count in unison. On three, we reveal our hands. He did paper. I did rock.

"I win," he says smugly.

"Sorry, baby, but you lose."

"Paper covers rock!"

I smirk. "Rock weighs down the paper so it can't fly away. It traps it."

A loud sigh fills the room. "I'm not going to win on this, am I?"

"Nope." But he looks so cute right now that I offer a compromise. "How about this? You can leave the room while the doctor tells me, and I swear I won't give it away. I'll hide all my baby purchases in my closet so you can't see what I'm buying."

"Deal — Elle Kennedy

Right now, as I've gotten older, my tics sustain for five or ten years. So, I can deal with them on a daily basis; I know how it affects my body. But when you're 10 years old, and every three months a tic comes along, it's daunting because you don't know what the next one is going to look like, what it's going to feel like. — Tim Howard

I believe that you're great, that there's something magnificent about you. Regardless of what has happened to you in your life, regardless of how young or how old you think you might be, the moment you begin to think properly, there's something that is within you, there's power within you, that's greater than the world. It will begin to emerge. It will take over your life. It will feed you. It will clothe you. It will guide you, protect you, direct you, sustain your very existence, if you let it. Now, that is what I know for sure. — Michael Beckwith

I agree, Dad. I was just explaining to the woman why we don't look anything alike and why you would have been younger than me when I was born. It doesn't mean I don't love you 'cause you know I do. Make one snotty comment in anger when you're twelve years old going through puberty and getting grounded, and you pay for it for the rest of your life. Parents ain't got no sense of humor. (Omari) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

If you're an old pro, you know how well you're doing when you're doing it, and your inner government spanks you if you're not doing well. — Jerry Lewis

You know you're getting old when you buy a sexy sheer nightgown and don't know anyone who can see through it. — Joan Rivers

But the problem is that you don't dare to think about anything. You're afraid; you don't know where your thoughts might lead you. Everything inside you is confused. You keep your eyes closed and stay on the old path. They brought you here, I don't know why and it doesn't concern me, but you won't accept my explanations of human guilt. You think it's a joke. Maybe it is, but maybe one could develop quite a nice philosophical idea out of it — Mesa Selimovic

And you and I know you're the best thing that ever happened to me, and, yes, that's an expression, something people say, that has no meaning, but what I mean is there isn't anybody in the whole world who has loved me the way you have, not my mother, not my old man, not my friends.
There's nothing preventing me and you from loving each other and being some kinda world-class shining beacon of love except how bad do we want it and what are we willing to do for it?
Now, I know I did you wrong, and I was freaking out and being stupid and I was mean to you. You know sometimes I get all fucking confused and I can't see outside of my own asshole. I'm unhappy. Why am I unhappy? It's gotta be somebody's fault, right? It couldn't just be that I'm a self-centered fuck spinning around inside my own dank cloud of concerns.
There isn't anything I can think of that I really want or that the best part of me wants, that loving you won't start doing. I love you. — Ethan Hawke

Age makes you notice certain things. For example, I now know that a man's life is broadly divided into three periods. During the first, it doesn't even occur to us that one day we will grow old, we don't think that time passes or that from the day we are born we're all walking toward a common end. After the first years of youth comes the second period, in which a person becomes aware of the fragility of life and what begins like a simple niggling doubt rises inside you like a flood of uncertainties that will stay with you for the rest of your days. Finally, toward the end of life, the period of acceptance begins, and, consequently, of resignation, a time of waiting. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

When I was around 19 years old, working in the college library, I was talking to a friend of mine and this older woman interrupted and said "You're too young to know about Billie Holiday." My response was "I'm too young to know about Shakespeare, too ... should I not read him? — Wanda Lea Brayton

But I'm learning it's human nature to want the things you can't have. What changes is how you go about pursuing the things you want. When you're a little kid and you're told no, you scream and throw a temper tantrum. When you're a teenager and your parents tell you no, you're old enough to internalize your temper tantrum. But you're smarter and you're sneakier this time around. So you nod and act like you care when they say no, when they tell you who you can be friends with, when they say the know what's best.
But then you go behind their backs to do it anyway.
Because at some point, you need to start calling the shots. At some point, you need to start believing you know whats best. Or, I thought with a smile, you just stop asking for their permission in the first place. — Katie Kacvinsky

If you EVER touch her again, you're a dead man! You got that? There'll be no lawsuit filed against you man, I'll just settle this old school. I don't know how you feel about having your fingers ripped off and shoved up your own arse, but let me tell you, I won't be gentle. — Shelly Pratt

The baron reminds me of someone, but I can't quite put my finger on who it is," Ramsey remarked.
"I swear my own father never talked to me the way Gillian's uncle just did."
"Your father died before you were old enough to know him."
"It was humiliating, damn it. He sure as certain wasn't what I expected. The way Gillian talked about him, I pictured a mild-mannered gentleman. She thinks he's ... gentle. Is the woman blind? How in God's name can she love such a crotchety old ... "
Ramsey's head snapped up, and he suddenly burst into laughter, breaking Brodick's train of thought. "It's you."
"What?"
"Morgan ... he reminds me of you. My God, Gillian married a man just like her uncle. Look at the baron and you'll see yourself in twenty years."
"Are you suggesting I'm going to become a belligerent, foul-tempered old man?"
"Hell, you're already belligerent and foul-tempered. No wonder she fell in love with you," he drawled — Julie Garwood

She ordered white wine, and I ordered Schweppes tonic water without the booze. The drinks came, and I took a hit.
The first thing she said was, "I don't know how you can drink that stuff straight?"
"You mean without the liquor to kill the taste?"
"Yeah, it's so bitter."
"That's what I like about it. It's bitter like me. We match."
"You mean you're a grumpy old man?"
"Right. Can't help it. That's what happens when you get old."
"Well, I'm an optimist."
"I'm an optimist too, just a grumpy optimist. — Robert Hobkirk

Over the decades, you got various companies involved in making escalators and you've got Metro varying between internal repair crews and contractors. They're dealing with old equipment, which of course is prone to break down, and the repair crews don't even know what's busted or who made the busted parts till they tear the things open. Then sometimes they have to go back to the shop and manufacture parts, because the original maker has gone out of business. — Robert James Thomson

Suddenly Tink was right in front of my face, causing me to jerk back. "I know you're mad at me and you probably want to slice and dice me up and wear my skin as a new bracelet."
I glanced around. "Um. That's not exactly what I want to do."
Hope widened his eyes.
"But I kind of want to flush you down a toilet," I amended.
He gasped. "I'd get stuck! And these pipes are old. How would you even do that? I'm not a goldfish."
I rolled my eyes. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

The murder rate in Chicago is skyrocketing, and you see who's doing it and perpetrating it - they all look like Chief Keef. When it comes to the point that, you know, that kids who are doing the killings, and they're kids 13 to 19 years old, and you can replicate that in New Orleans, you can replicate that in Oakland. All the kids look the same. — Lupe Fiasco

You know you're old when the president is younger than you. — Steve Kangas

You're following me," I finally say. "Why?"
"Because I'm trying to reclaim what's mine."
"I'm not yours."
"You are.You always have been.You always will be."
"That's crap."
"Is it? Look inside youself, Zara. I think you'll find what's true."
"I don't know what's true anymore. But I know you're starting to sound like a bad ripoff of Darth Vader in an old Star Wars movie. And I know you're trying to hurt me."
He shakes his head and listens to air. "Never."
"Which part? The Darth thing or the hurting thing?"
"Both. — Carrie Jones

People really don't care, in some ways, that you have a family. With a high profile job like I have, they just want you to win basketball games. You can do that and still keep your family together. I try the best I can to be at the basketball practices or tennis practices or recitals. In my first year at Dallas my (then 11-year old) son Avery Jr., said, "You know daddy, you're still the best coach in the NBA." I was like, "But I haven't won a playoff game yet." And he said, "That's okay. You're still my daddy." That makes you feel good. — Avery Johnson

The other day my twelve-year-old says to me, I don't feel like I'm with you right now. You're in the car with me, you're checking your e-mail, you're not listening to me, I don't feel like I'm with you. And I say, You know what? That was your mother's gripe, too. And she was right. And you're also correct. When you cop to something, you get to the next level. In this case, the next level is: I just learned something from my twelve-year-old. — Bob Saget

As my old professor Carl Sagan said so often, 'When you're in love, you want to tell the world.' And I base my beliefs on the information and the process that we call science. It fills me with joy to make discoveries every day of things I've never seen before. It fills me with joy to know that we can pursue these answers. It is an astonishing thing that we are - you and I are one of the ways the universe knows itself. — Bill Nye

Hey! look at us
We're digging and digging
Into stubborn, ancient earth;
We're discovering
Where we came from,
and how we came.

"but where are you going?"

Hey! look at us
We're learning and learning
Into stubborn laws
Of nature and space
And non-nature and non-space;
We're discovering
All there is to know.

"but where are you going?"

Hey! look at us
We're planning and planning
Into stubborn years
Of education and training
And hopes and dreams;
We're discovering
How not to waste any time.

"but where are you going?"

Hey! look at us
We're shiny and bright
And clever and sophisticated
And witty and well-read;
We're discovering
How to really fill up
This old life.

"but where are you going?"

where?

"Yes; where? — Lois A. Cheney

When you take things too seriously, you get old. You have to be silly. Whenever people say, 'Hey, man, are you ever going to grow up?' That's when you know you're doing things right. — Ricky Martin

You know just because the majority thinks something is right, doesn't make it right. So, that is up to us, the people that see the wrong, that see the injustice, that stay educated, stay informed, stay involved. And there's an old phrase 'the squeaky wheel, gets the oil.' Right now, our wheels aren't very squeaky; the other side, they're the ones making all the racket ... We just have to get up, stand up, speak out, and don't be silent. — Otep Shamaya

I can't explain something I saw on holiday on Holy Island when I was about nine years old, but do you know what, it could have been my PE teacher dressed in a monk's habit. I have no idea. I'm not a ghost person ... it doesn't mean there aren't unexplained things; I just don't think they're ghosts. — Tom Goodman-Hill

Mr. Schmidt had screamed at me in New York: LOSER! You English Loser ... I suppose he thought it was the most grievous insult he could hurl. But such a curse doesn't really have any effect on an English person - or a European - it seems to me. We know we're all going to lose in the end so it is deprived of any force as a slur. But not in the USA. Perhaps this is the great difference between the two worlds, this concept of Loserdom. In the New World it is the ultimate mark of shame - in the Old it prompts only a wry sympathy. — William Boyd

That's what I don't like about college, by the way. It's like a lot of people don't believe these years really count, so you're allowed to experiment with ... whatever. There's such a casual view about things like sex and drinking and even drugs. I know that sounds really old-fashioned, but I just don't get it ... to be honest, I'm kind of disappointed in those two people I heard about, and I don't want to sit there trying to pretend that I'm not. I know I shouldn't judge, ... but still, what was the point? Shouldn't you save things like that for someone you love? So that it really means something? - Savannah — Nicholas Sparks

Young people," McDonald said contemptuously. "You always think there's something to find out."
"Yes, sir," Andrews said.
"Well, there's nothing," McDonald said. "You get born, and you nurse on lies, and you get weaned on lies, and you learn fancier lies in school. You live all your life on lies, and then maybe when you're ready to die, it comes to you - that there's nothing, nothing but yourself and what you could have done. Only you ain't done it, because the lies told you there was something else. Then you know you could of had the world, because you're the only one that knows the secret; only then it's too late. You're too old."
"No," Andrews said. A vague terror crept from the darkness that surrounded them, and tightened his voice. "That's not the way it is."
"You ain't learned, then," McDonald said. "You ain't learned yet ... — John Edward Williams

That's the oldest sin of all. Pride. Spiritual pride. Believing that you're better than others. Believing that you're enlightened, you're smart, you're in the know, and everyone else is stumbling about blindly in the darkness. The old us-versus-them. My group is better than your group. My people, my nation, my country, my religion, my gender, my sexual orientation. Old as sin. And it's a Big Lie. — Jerome Wilde

Get through a draft as quickly as possible. Hard to know the shape of the thing until you have a draft. Literally, when I wrote the last page of my first draft of Lincoln's Melancholy I thought, Oh, shit, now I get the shape of this. But I had wasted years, literally years, writing and re-writing the first third to first half. The old writer's rule applies: Have the courage to write badly. — Joshua Wolf Shenk

Having a fling with you doesn't appeal to me. You're handsome, but you're too inexperienced and too arrogant to be good in bed. Having ridden many horses doesn't make you a good rider; it just proves that you can't recognize a good one or don't know how to keep her. You're too young for me, and in ten years, when you improve, I will be too old for you. So let's not speak of this again. A thin, high-pitched sound came from the wall. Miko was snickering. — Ilona Andrews

And isn't that weird? Think about this, when you're born, you nurse on your mama. And then you get a little older, you go to applesauce. And then you see these toddlers walking around with these Ziploc baggies full of Cheerios. Then you get to be my age, and the doctor wants you to start eating Cheerios to watch your cholesterol. Then you lose your teeth, you go to applesauce. I now know why old men like women with really big boobs. They see a trend. I mean, they call it a nursing home, hello. — Bill Engvall

Perhaps I don't express myself very well. But you all demand so much from life--you're never satisfied. In the old days, a poor man was content if he had something to eat and a roof over his head. Nowadays, everything has to be so high-and-mighty. Everything you set your minds on, you have to have, whether you can afford it or not.... And everyone's up to their eyebrows in debt... A fat lot of use it is having schools, books and I don't know what! In the old days we used to be a lot more reasonable. — Hedin Bru

When you're young you think you know it all, when you're old you wish you could remember it all. — T.A. Uner

The next day I was driven down to New York City to take the physical. It was one of the strangest things I'd ever seen. Several hundred young men, maybe even a thousand, in their skivvies, walking around an enormous room, all of us lost, dazed, and confused.
Some of these guys had dodged the draft and were there under the watchful eyes of dozens of federal marshals lined up against one of the walls. After eight hours of being poked, prodded, stuck, and poked again, I was given a large red envelope. I had been rejected. I had the respiratory problems of an old man, high blood pressure, partial loss of hearing, very bad teeth, very flat, very wide feet and I tested positive for tuberculosis.
"Frankly," the doctor said, "I don't know how the hell you're even standing up," and that was when the sergeant told me that if they bottled everything that was wrong with me "we could take over the world without a shot. — John William Tuohy

Even if you do die, I was thinking today, it's really only on the arbitrary human scale that a human life seems fort, or long, or whatever, and like, from the perspective of eternal time, the human life is vanishingly small, like it's really equivalent whether you live to be 17 or 94 or even 20,00 years old, which is obviosusly impossible, and then, on the other hand, from the perspective of an ultra-nanoinstant, which is the smallest measurable unit of time, a human life is almost infinite even if you die when you're like, a toddler. So either way it doesn't even matter how long you live. So I don't know if that makes you feel better, but it's just something to think about. — Jesse Andrews

I drink every night. But I don't hang out and party. Not that I'm selling out Madison Square Garden, but in the old days after a show you could hang out with a few people. But now you're hanging around with 20 people, all of whom don't know each other, and they're all, "Leave my outgoing greeting on my voice mail, man, come on!" — Doug Stanhope

You know you're getting old when you stoop to tie your shoelaces and wonder what else you could do while you're down there. — George Burns

It's just that old people always think young people haven't really learned about love; and young people think that old people have forgotten about love; and, you know, they're both wrong. — Isaac Asimov

People stopping you in the street, though, is very different from being hounded by the press, which is the kind of attention that celebrities get, and I'm probably too old for that kind of thing to happen anyway. I think it happens more when you're dating all sorts of different very handsome actors or something. They want gossip and scandal, and they know they're not going to get it from me because I'm too old to be scandalous. Of course, they could read the book - although it's not really a scandalous book. — Grace Coddington

Name one hero who was happy."
I considered. Heracles went mad and killed his family; Theseus lost his bride and father; Jason's children and new wife were murdered by his old; Bellerophon killed the Chimera but was crippled by the fall from Pegasus' back.
"You can't." He was sitting up now, leaning forward.
"I can't."
"I know. They never let you be famous AND happy." He lifted an eyebrow. "I'll tell you a secret."
"Tell me." I loved it when he was like this.
"I'm going to be the first." He took my palm and held it to his. "Swear it."
"Why me?"
"Because you're the reason. Swear it."
"I swear it," I said, lost in the high color of his cheeks, the flame in his eyes.
"I swear it," he echoed.
We sat like that a moment, hands touching. He grinned.
"I feel like I could eat the world raw. — Madeline Miller

Those who die young, they are cheated," she said. "Not cheated out of life, because life is a penance, but the young, they're cheated because they don't know it's coming. They don't have time to move closer, to return home. When you know you're going to die, you try to be near the bones of your own people. You don't even think you have bones when you're young, even when you break them, you don't believe you have them. But when you're old, they start reminding you they're there. They start turning to dust on you, even as you're walking here and there, going from place to place. And this is when you crave to be near the bones of your own people. My children never felt this. They had to look death in the face, even before they knew what it was. Just like you did, no? — Edwidge Danticat

This report is maybe 12-years-old. Parliament buried it, and it stayed buried till River dug it up. This is what they feared she knew. And they were right to fear because there's a whole universe of folk who are gonna know it, too. They're gonna see it. Somebody has to speak for these people. You all got on this boat for different reasons, but you all come to the same place. So now I'm asking more of you than I have before. Maybe all. Sure as I know anything I know this, they will try again. Maybe on another world, maybe on this very ground swept clean. A year from now, 10, they'll swing back to the belief that they can make people ... better. And I do not hold to that. So no more running. I aim to misbehave. — Joss Whedon

Darling, when you're as old as I am, you cherish the very few musicals that have come your way that you know are great classics. You become their guardian. — Cameron Mackintosh

Walk around Tokyo and all you see are people trying to sell you something. Tell them okay and before you know you have bought something. Make the mistake of telling your address and now you're on a mailing list. Some old guy pats you on the shoulder and before you know what hit you you're in a hotel room. Stalkers' victims, the ones they kill, are always women. — Natsuo Kirino

You know you're getting old when the candles cost more than the cake. — Bob Hope

Phoenix sank to the desk chair and stared at her computer screen. "I don't know. I've lived like this for so long, it's who I am. Everything seems so stupid. Like, look at this girl,writing to Sasha. She's all" - he spoke in a falsetto voice - "'OMG!' and 'LOL!' and 'WTF?' and 'Girl, you should totes go out with Tyler in Telluride!'" He looked up at her."You're seventeen years old, and this is how seventeenyear-olds talk to each other. I'm a thousand years old, and this stuff is like alien-speak to me. If I found another Anabo,she'd be writing OMG and I'd be thinking, You're f'ing
kidding me. — Trinity Faegen

As people get older, we all know, you get married and you have a child and that becomes your family, but when you're 16 years old, especially, your family is your friends. — Stephen Chbosky

Whether it's 18 years old or 40 years old, we think we know what's going on. But if you're lucky enough to continue the journey, its amazing how we keep learning how much we didn't know. — Joe Namath

Nobody or Nowhere? Fern: I'd rather be nobody at home than somebody somewhere else.
Ambrose: I'd rather be nowhere. Being nobody when you're expected to be somebody gets old.
Fern: How would you know? Have you been nobody?
Ambrose: Everybody who is somebody becomes nobody the moment they fail. — Amy Harmon

At the very least, I hope it means I will get my Briony back again. I know, I'll hold a party for her--and take her on a pony ride--I think that will be quite in order, if I can be spared from my official duties for the afternoon."

"You're the King," Taris reminded him with a smile.

"But you're my conscience, Taris, you know that."

"Then your conscience says we should keep his highness's current location secret, but an announcement of his escape is most desirable. Therefore, a party is quite in order--if not essential--for the morale of the nation."

"Excellent. I really should promote you, old friend. Only trouble is, there's nowhere to go but down from your office."

"I am well aware of that, Your Majesty. — Julia Golding

Nigerians don't buy houses because they're old. A renovated two-hundred-year-old mill granary, you know, the kind of thing Europeans like. It doesn't work here at all. But of course it makes sense because we are Third Worlders and Third Worlders are forward-looking, we like things to be new, because our best is still ahead, while in the West their best is already past and so they have to make a fetish of that past. — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Ask me, then, if I believe in the spirit of the things as they were used, and I'll say yes. They're all here. All the things which had uses. All the mountains which had names. And we'll never be able to use them without feeling uncomfortable. And somehow the mountains will never sound right to us; we'll give them new names, but the old names are there, somewhere in time, and the mountains were shaped and seen under those names. The names we'll give to the canals and mountains and cities will fall like so much water on the back of a mallard. No matter how we touch Mars, we'll never touch it. And then we'll get mad at it, and you know what we'll do? We'll rip it up, rip the skin off, and change it to fit ourselves. — Ray Bradbury

After driving 30-minutes East of Seattle, I expect to see a great bowling alley. But, as we pull into the parking lot, all I see are pot holes, a horse and Amish buggy, and no cars to speak of- broken down or otherwise. Even the building is in shambles, needs painted and looks a bit haunted. The old road sign reading- Flicker Lanes- is half-burnt out. Seeing the building's interior lights on, I'm reassured that the place is open- but then again, maybe they've been left on by mistake. "There's LOTS of NICE bowling alleys in SEATTLE," I said. "Why did we come ALL THIS WAY to go BOWLING?"
"I take it that you've never BEEN here before."
"I don't think ANYONE HAS. I don't even KNOW what PLANET we're on."
"I don't know what PLANET you're on either... but the rest of us are on your ANUS."
I half-smile, marveling at his wittiness. — Giorge Leedy

Well, you're lucky, that's all. Even if he is a vamp now. You must be pretty used to all sorts of weird stuff, being a Shadowhunter, so I bet it doesn't faze you.
"It fazes me," Clary said, more sharply then she'd intended. "I'm not Jace."
The smirk widened. " No one is. And I get the feeling he knows it.
"Whats that supposed to mean?"
"Oh, you know. Jace reminds me of an old boyfriend. Some guys look at you like they want sex. Jace looks at you like you've already had sex, it was great, and now you're just friends- even though you want more. Drives girls crazy. You know what i mean?
Yes, Clary thought. "No." she said. — Cassandra Clare

Marriage is supposed to be this huge great overwhelming passion, and that we're supposed to be looking for our soulmate, our other half, but it's actually pretty damn mundane. After all the excitement goes, what you really want to be left with is someone who is a really good person and who adores you, and who you can grow old with. I know the bastards are exciting, but they don't make a good husband material. — Jane Green

I don't know what the hell that freak just said, but we're not as backward as you cyborgs think! We know how to speak English!" The tableau continued a moment longer before Old-timer finally managed to utter, "You do?" "No! I'm lying to you! I don't speak a damn word of English! I memorized this phonetically just to piss you off at the right moment!" the Purist shouted back at him. — David Simpson

I'm seven hundred years old, Alexander. I know when something isn't going to work. You won't even admit I exist to your parents."
Alec stared at him. "I thought you were three hundred! You're seven huundred years old?"
"Well," Magnus amended, "eight hundred. But I dont look it. Anyway, you're missing the point. The point is-"
But Alec never found out what the point was because at that moment a dozen more Iblis demons flooded into the square. He felt his jaw drop. "Damn it."
Magnus followed his gaze. the demons were already fanning out into a half circle around them, their yellow eyes glowing. "Way to change the subject, Lightwood. — Cassandra Clare

It's over for me, isn't it?" The old man glanced across the room mid-chew. "What do you mean?" "I'm not getting my body back." He shrugged. "Probably not." My head swam. It didn't matter that at some level I had suspected the truth; hearing the words spoken out loud felt like a kick in the teeth. "Why didn't you tell me before?" "You're a smart guy, Alexander, and we both know you had already figured it out. That's always the way with people - truth staring them in the face but unwilling to accept it." He ate another cookie quietly. "But," he added, "even if I had spelled it out you wouldn't have believed me. You weren't ready or willing to accept it yet. You'd just have gotten all worked up. — Linda Francis Lee

If you're in the exorcism business, you must know a lot about demons." "Qliphoth," he says. "What?" "It's the proper word for what you call a demon. A demon is a bogeyman, an irrational entity representing fear in the collective unconscious. The Qliphoth are the castoffs of a greater entity. The old gods. They're dumb and their lack of intelligence makes them pure evil." "Okay, Daniel Webster. What happened at the exorcism?" Traven takes a breath and stares at his hands for a minute. "You should know that I don't follow the Church's standard exorcism rites. For instance, I seldom speak Latin. If Qliphoth really are lost fragments of the Angra Om Ya, the older dark gods, they're part of creatures millions of years old. Why would Latin have any effect on them? — Richard Kadrey

I found out the differences between "the truth" and "all the truth." You can know some pretty terrible things about a person, and you can know they're true. But sometimes it makes a huge difference if you know what else is true too. I read something in a book once about an old lady who was walking along the street minding her own business when a young guy came charging along, knocked her down, rolled her in a mud puddle, slapped her head and smeared handsful of wet mud all over her hair. Now what should you do with a guy like that?
But then if you find out that someone had got careless with a drum of gasoline and it ignited and the old lady was splashed with it, and the guy had presence of mind enough to do what he did as fast as he did, and severely burned his hands in the doing of it, then what should you do with him?
Yet everything reported about him is true. The only difference is the amount of truth you tell. — Theodore Sturgeon

You know what's the worst? Being a 16 year old girl who loves a famous Singer, not solely for his looks, but because you truly believe he is talented and devoted and you agree deeply with his message. Because no matter how intelligently and fully you can express that, people will assume you're just a silly teenager who thinks a famous guy is cute. — Anthony Kiedis

All writers are insecure, the male ones especially. It's well known. Why else would they spend so much time on make-believe? They're only happy in their imaginary worlds, because that's where they're in charge - where they're God. Did you know that Hemingway's mother dressed him as a girl until he was six years old?
I was not offended by Claudia's glib psychological theory. Like many glib psychological theories, it struck me as fundamentally correct. — Philip Sington